When It Comes To Balls
by Blazing Fool
Summary: Ty's never been much good at handling anything but a camera, his partner's temperamental attitudes not the least of which. [Slight TyGabby, for all you RSE folks who actually know them]


_A/N: Because these two need more attention, dammit. _

"All I'm saying," said the woman with the purple hair as she strained to reach the television, "is that you could stand to look a little more respectable. Appealing to the audience. Put a real shirt on, at least. It isn't as though you don't have a nice face." She watched herself talk on the screen and absent-mindedly fiddled with the remote.

"M'flattered." replied the cameraman in-between slurps of coffee. His gaze lazily swept over the Center lobby and, spying nothing of interest, returned to the television screen his partner was ogling. He rather fancied he saw her eye attracted to his image. "Interested, are we?" A bit of coffee spilled out of his cup and joined legions of stains on a T-shirt that had seen far better days.

"Well, perhaps if you managed to-" She turned to meet him, and her gaze fell upon the glistening streak of coffee. "On second thought, nah. Just because you're behind the camera during the battle doesn't mean you can go around dressed like an insane vagrant. Change into something remotely clean."

"Soon as you get rid of the lipstick smears, I will." And now for Ty's favorite part of the program- Gabby's love of talking was preceded only by her incredible vanity. He watched in amusement as she whipped out a hand mirror in a professional manner and began scrupulously investigating every square inch of her face.

She scowled. The hand mirror closed with a snap that brought nothing less than castration to mind. "Liar. First you lose us the match- again -and now you're biting away at my self-esteem. I'm famous, you know. I have an image to maintain."

"Eh." The cameraman shrugged, and spread himself out on the Center's couch, not entirely oblivious to the fierce deluge outside. Two old women were pointing at Gabby and babbling excitedly. He tipped them a wink, to which they recoiled with disgust. "You're an easy target. Is being neurotic, like, a requirement for your job?"

Frowning, Gabby turned back to the hanging television and began to rewind. "It's not on the _application_, no, but it's kind of an unspoken thing. Anyway. Um. This whole thing is your fault. We could have finally had a win, and on tape, too, but then-"

"Hey, hey, hey!" cried Ty in half-hearted indignation. His beloved camera was gently lowered to the ground as he stretched himself out to his full length, displaying not a few muscles in the process. (You didn't lug 50 pounds of metal around the whole bloody continent without building up a little some'n-some'n.) "Don't go blaming me just cuz we keep getting our tails whooped by these little _wunderkinds_. Kids today. Honestly. No respect for their elders, or some such."

He turned over on his side to get a better view of the local Joy, who was busy dealing with a boatload of LGBT protestors in blue bandanas. They all kept sending guilty glances out the window, as though they felt responsible for the fierce rain outside. Ty himself thought it was shameful the way the fundies in the media convinced them all into believing every earthly problem was their fault. That Squirtle incident. Ugh. It wasn't often he wanted to burn footage after he was finished filming it, but sometimes Gabby just had to be the first one to get the scoop.

The rain was playing up everyone's temper. "Besides," he continued, "It's _your _Loudred that's losing us ratings in the first place. It's a good thing Mag doesn't have earlobes, I s'pect they couldn't battle together otherwise."

"You leave Big Red alone, you big jerk!" Gabby had finished playing with the footage and was now hunting through her personal effects for her notebook. Along the way, she found the creature in question's Ball and cooed to it lovingly. "Don't listen to the smelly cameraman, Loudy. You're Mommy's little blue monster, aren'tchoo? _Yes_yooare. _Yes_yooare." Finally locating the notebook, she promptly dropped the ball back into her purse and plopped herself into a chair next to Ty. He wondered vaguely what life in a Poke Ball was like, then decided he really didn't want to know. He also resolved stop juggling Magneton's when he was bored.

She flipped through an eternity of quotes, carefully manicured nails moving at a blur. "Jumping Jigglypuffs. You'd think with all these battles under our metaphorical belts we'd have gotten _good_ at it somewhere along the line."

"'Metaphorical'?" Ty scoffed. "Speak for yourself, sister, I still have that Sharpedo bite on my thigh. Still not sure how you convinced me into that triathlon, every five meters there's a Tentacool stopping in for a friendly chat- although it _was_ pretty nice footage. Not every day a man has his pancreas torn out by a ravenous fish, and on camera, no less."

"Give the people what they want."

"Too right, babe." His eye was still on the fellows in bandanas. Apparently the pride parade, as he was guessing it had been, had been ruined by some kid trainer. "See? The brat's're sweeping the nation. I remember when Pokemon was something the old folks did on weekends, now we're letting our kids wander the countryside with nothing but a bunch of animals in balls to keep them company. Remember _school_? Whatever happened to school? _We_ went to school."

"There's still_ a_ school." Gabby muttered in reply. "S'in Rustboro somewhere. Ah, here it is." Her fingers abruptly came to halt on page 712. "Now, what literary wisdom has our latest foe imparted us with? 'AIR LOCK.' Why that's… That's just _Shakespearian_." Her eyes rose to the ceiling and she sighed with regret. "Ty, sometimes I think people don't pay any attention to us at all."

"We have seven thousand viewers across the country, we can't be that bad off." The storm-ridden sky hadn't changed at all over the day, and wasn't about to start now. The clock, however, said it was late, and Ty was inclined to believe it. They weren't going anywhere in this deluge, so it seemed they'd be spending the night. Maybe once Joy left he'd get Magneton out here and continue their poker lessons. "It's the low self-esteem thing again, isn't it."

"Oh, hang on. Hang on. How is this." She took a moment to collect herself and then burst into a cheery smile. "'Hi! Today I'm visiting an area near ROUTE 118. We're trying to spot some up-and-coming new talent in the field. Today, we turned our lens to the TRAINER MIKEY! There's something about this TRAINER that piqued our interest. I knew we were on to something special when we spotted this TRAINER!'" Her reporter's grin collapsed into a nervous frown. "How was that? No stutters? Nothing stuck in my teeth? I don't have a zit, do I?"

"You're beautiful!" cried Ty, trying to plug the dam before it burst. The Team Aqua crew- Ty wasn't a hater of any sort, but he felt that if you wanted to avoid ridicule, a name that fruity probably wasn't a good idea -had sauntered out, and Joy turned off the lights as she departed for her room. "Stunning. Radiant, even. I wasn't even listening to anything you said, and fortunately for us, neither is anyone else. You could do with a lower neckline, though."

Gabby threw a couch pillow at him. "And you," she scowled, "could do with a better shirt. And better shoes. And lose that hat. You know, you'd probably look good in black, if we could hit Lilycove maybe we pick up a tuxedo-"

Ty self-consciously tugged on his hat, turned on his side, and released Magneton from its spherical prison as quietly as possible. Joy was adamant on Pokemon staying _in_ the balls, thank you very much, but Ty had never been much good at dealing with rules. Or balls. "What do you think, Mag? Shall I traverse the rugged countryside in my Sunday best?"

"MAGNETON."

"Ssh!"

"_Magneton..."_

"I'll take that as a no." He began to deal the cards, which promptly stuck to Magneton's sides. "Now then," he said as Gabby silently fumed at his shallow dismissal, "You, my friend, are going to explain to me exactly how one 'bluffs'. And no cheating this time! Wages are thin, and it's bad enough that I have to be paying for your spark plugs." Magneton let out a noise which, taken under the right circumstances, could have been a grumble.

Gabby found a blanket, cloaked herself in it, and lay down next to her loyal cameraman in a movement that one could describe as a snuggle, if one didn't mind an angry reporter biting one's ear off. "Shut _up_, there's only one _couch_, I am _not_ sleeping on the floor. _Men_."

"Honestly, Gab," Ty grinned, "When are we just gonna get it over with?" The giant magnet(s) next to him rumbled their agreement.

She turned over on her side. "Oh, I think I can resist your masculine charms for at least another day."

"Goddammit."


End file.
